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Comment by smugma | Hacker News Reader

In case anyone doesn’t want to look up said amendment, here is its text in full:

“Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted.“

A fine is meant to discourage a behavior. A fine isn't excessive unless (and until) it -effectively- discourages the wrongful behavior.

Or at least that’s what my argument would be in court.

Test your theory in your new profession as lawyer, or judge if that's your prerogative, sometime soon in court.

Personally, if I was in power I would disbar you immediately and pray that you never offer legal advice again.

No wonder half the comments in your comment history are downvoted!

Instead of attacking me, why don't you share some sources that prove my thinking wrong?

Please don't respond to a bad comment with an attack of your own. Your reply would have been fine with just the second sentence, and better still with just the second clause of the second sentence.

It's also fine to simply not react. From https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html: "Don't feed egregious comments by replying; flag them instead." a.k.a. please don't feed the trolls

Can you please not cross into personal attack or post in the flamewar style? We're trying for something different here.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

These fines DO discourage these behaviors. As some who handled fines at a very large bank, a fine would ALWAYS change the bank's procedures. ...and not only fines against us, but fines against ANY bank would alter procedures.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com